Sunday 27 January 2013

Quilting Itch III - coming together nicely

I need to start this entry by showing you something super cute.  Normally fabric printers put dye dots in the selvedge of the fabric, I'm sure they serve a technical purpose but I'm too lazy ot even google it to find out why.. but I might have to now- look how this buggy fabric has its dye dots printed...

 

I might have to go back and buy another piece of this just to get more lady birds!

Enough lollygagging back to scratching itches...

All those geese needed to be matched and sewn to their partner square...


 




Then one of my favourite parts of making a large quilt.  Pushing all the furniture back in the dining room and spreading the blocks around and playing with them, shuffling the rows until the colours and patterns all sit together nicely...


and then there is all the little sashing blocks to work into the design...


I can get a bit OCD when it comes to pressing seams...

 

But I think the results are worth it...


Just as I was finishing up a fox came right up to the window and looked in.  Of course he'd gone by the time I'd picked up the camera and rushed outside, but I wonder what it was about this view that made him want to investigate further?


Anyway a big quilt needs big borders.  This one is no exception there's going to be a pieced one in between two plain ones.  I love a pieced border, super cute little squares...

 

Two sides on and two to go...


Gotta keep scratching that itch!


Friday 18 January 2013

Sprinkles ....and then some more....

....I'll contain my grumbles about the train service being halved before a single snowflake had even fallen.... and concentrate instead on just how different it made everything look.

Coming round the next to last corner on the way to work the sprinkles were already sticking to the pavements and the (in)famous green bridge was looking distinctly grey in the swirling flakes..

 

The walk to school (and the office) was getting ever more interesting, and as the river started to disappear as well it was no wonder really that flights from Heathrow were disrupted...

 

All told it wasn't a day to be dreaming of firing up a wood stove on a houseboat...


 I wasn't really that surprised when I got the phonecall to say the boys' schools were closing early and the sight of trains in the snow at Wimbledon was really quite a big relief

 

Even if there was a cloud of snow whirled along the platform by every intercity passing through...

 

Anyway we all got safely home and snuggled down to see how much more snow might fall overnight.... I'm sure there were some small folk dreaming of snowmen! ( I know I was)

Sure enough we woke to a mini winter wonderland in the garden...although it did look like the foxes had beaten us to running around in it...

 

 

But whilst it was fun building snowmen and throwing a few snowballs I did find something to worry about...
Bees cluster together and shiver to generate heat to keep the colony warm - queen at the centre - imagine that all the way through the winter in a snuggle of 34' ( mmm yummy). Anyway a quick look at the snow on the roofs of my hives hints that all may not be well in Abigail's hive....


Becky looks like she might nicely toasty on the inside tho'....


The big question is how long do I leave it before opening Abigail's hive to investigate if she really is ok in there?

Sunday 13 January 2013

New Family Members.....

We've had goldfish as family pets for nearly as long as I can remember... certainly as long as the boys can remember... I think son #1 was 2 when we bought our first three.
Named Buzz, Woody and Thomas they swam happily together in the corner of the living room for 10 ...or was it 11 years... then slowly...one by one.....they left us for the great fish tank in the sky.
And sadly the corner of the room was not the same.. .and three pairs of sad eyes looked waterily at Dad and said Please..... p.l.e.a.s.e......P-L-E-A-S-E can we get some more fish.??

So the tank was scrubbed, new gravel, props and plants purchased and it was set to run for a fortnight to let things like ammonia and nitrate levels settle down...


There really cant be too many things more odd than an empty fish tank in the corner of the room so we were all mightily chuffed to be allowed to go fish shopping ...

Home we came with bags of fish ...who then had to be acclimatised to the tank...

 

 
Finally it was time to set them free...


So let me introduce you to...

 

Le-mon ....the lemon yellow goldfish


 

Tiny-paulos - he's ashiny kinda guy

 

Jimothy - he's a bit shy - forever popping in and out between the plants
and finally

 

Mama's tiny fish.

After a few days of tail nipping they are now getting along famously and bring a lovely bit of homely colour back to the corner of the room.


Soup glorious soup II

I've fancied making this one for a while now.
This week's soup is three onion....



As you can see it has really simple ingredients... Red onions, shallots, garlic, spring onions ( does that make it four onion soup I wonder?) thyme and a teaspoon of whole grain mustard.
Chop up all the onions - except the spring ones at this stage, pop them in the stock pot with a splash of olive oil and let them sweat a little in their own juices...

 

Add the stock and sprigs of thyme and simmer for about 10 minutes...


Note to self: dont get too close to the pot whilst simmering..


Finally stir in the mustard and the spring onions, which you chopped really finely whilst everything else was simmering...


Yummy....healthy soup!

Wednesday 2 January 2013

Quilting itch II......200 geese to tame

So having sorted out all the squares within squares my itch turned its attention to flying geese.
I needed 200 of them.

Now I like a little goose.. its a super cute thing to make and astonishingly easy when you know how.  Shall I explain?
Start by laying a square over an oblong and sewing straight across a diagonal line, corner to corner across the square.  If you are careful you can sew a whole row one after the other to make a crazy sort of bunting...


Trim off the excess corner and press open the square to reveal a triangle and then pop a square over the other side of the oblong and sew again...

 

Trim the excess off the other side, open it up and hey presto a small goose appears and with eight similar friends, and some helpful extra squares, it makes a nice edging for that square within a square I made earlier...

 

So... now all I need are 24 more sets.
I wonder how many little squares and oblongs that means I need? ....
mmm lets do the maths:
200 oblongs plus 400 squares ....what would 600 little bits of fabric look like?

 

 

I've realised these photos make me look rather more organised than I really was over the week it took to put all these geese together.  It did get a bit chaotic at times....


But its all worth it really....those little geese need to fly in sets of eight birdies around each square within a square...

 

So just 24 more sets to match up now....
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